My ghetto wort chiller / ice bath

[Rosvineer]

I stuck the boil kettle in the cooler filled with hose water. It's still cool enough here for this to work well. I opened the spigot on the cooler and ran cold water through the cooler. Got down to 90* fairly quickly and then sanitized a gallon zip lock, filled it with ice and put it in the wort. Worked pretty darn good, though I probably wasted a lot of water.

Fermentation started ~5 hours after pitching and its looking great.

 

[kevinb]

I do something similar, except I fill it with Ice water. Works well and saves water.

 

[Rosvineer]

I planned on using ice in the cooler but failed to get it before brewing. I had to improvise as I only had about 2 lbs of ice available. Will definitely have more ice on hand next brew day

 

[soapy45]

Hillbilly wort chiiler

 

[CityOChampBrew]

Hillbilly wort chiiler

View attachment 110720

more like Canadian

 

[soapy45]

Actually, I took this picture this past Sunday, in Pennsylvania. It worked pretty well, too.

 

[looneybomber]

Hillbilly wort chiiler

No lid?

 

[njs170]

there is no shame in chilling that way! I use a wort chiller with a pump. I put buckets of water outside a day before (only in the winter) and then I put snow/ice in the buckets if there is still some on the ground.

 

[soapy45]

No lid?

First time brewing. Should I have had a lid on it??

 

[unionrdr]

I always put a lid on mine,as nasties settle downward in the air.

 

[Rosvineer]

I take the lid off to stir the wort with a sanitized spoon. Other than that the lid stays on to protect it

 

[Schol-R-LEA]

My own cobbled-together wort chiller - which I intend to replace once I get the money for a Therminator, though that may be some time yet - is simply a coil of 1/2" i.d. copper tubing which I sit in an ice water bath and siphon the wort through. It isn't very effective, but it does the job well enough, and I've been able to keep it clean enough (by back-flushing with StarSan solution) that I haven't had any issues with contamination to date.

 

[bleme]

First time brewing. Should I have had a lid on it??

I feel this is another of those personal choices. Your wort will cool a LOT faster without a lid and I bet there aren't very many nasties hanging out in snow banks. The faster you chill, the better your cold break and the sooner you can inoculate it with yeast. It is still a risk, but a pretty minute one IMHO.

You will chill better if you put your kettle in a big tub and shovel snow in around it though. In a bank like that, the snow melts away from the pot pretty fast so you loose contact. In a tub, that melt turns to water (and you can add some water of your own) which transfers the heat a lot better. Give it a slow stir about once a minute and you should be down to pitching temp in 10-15 minutes.

 

[looneybomber]

First time brewing. Should I have had a lid on it??

Everyone pretty much covered it. I will have my lid off when stirring, and I try to stir (gently) constantly for the first minute or so since a lot of heat is getting absorbed in my tub of ice water. However, I try to get that lid on soon because I don't want a leaf, bug, rogue drop of water from the tree above, etc... falling in the pot. I'm not too concerned about things floating in the air in the winter, just debris that could make its way in.

 

[unionrdr]

Some of these with pics should def be in my "ghetto brew setups" thread!...